It happened at Chili's restaurant

The airport: continued

"Exactly. I find you attractive, Scully, not just because you have a lovely little figure and the best lips I've ever seen, but because you are intelligent and loyal and funny and sweet. So stop thinking I look at you like a sister, for god's sake. I mean, I kissed you on New Year's Eve for a reason, not just because you were the only one standing there."

"There was no tongue," she points out and I realize that Scully has finished that margarita before she's eaten much of her dinner and things are getting interesting. I shift slightly and grin at her.

"I didn't want to overwhelm you," I say and she laughs happily.

"Jesus, Mulder, your head is huge!"

And then we're both laughing. This is much, much more like it.

"So..." I say. "You're attracted to me, I assume?"

She snorts. "You would assume, Mulder. But yes, I am attracted to you. I think I first realized it during the whole Phoebe Green thing. I kept thinking: why am I so jealous? And then it occurred to me that there might just be a reason."

I am stunned. "That was ... that was six and a half years ago."

"I know," she says. "And you kissed me for the first time what, three weeks ago?"

"No wonder you thought I wasn't attracted to you," I whisper, dejected. She grins and shovels another bite of fajita into her mouth. And then I do something stupid, which actually turns out ok, but looking back on it... I mean, god, I want to smack myself in the head with the fork. "I don't know when I first realized I wanted you, Scully. I mean, it feels like I've wanted you since I met you, but I know what an ego maniac I was then..."

"Then?" she queries.

"I like to think I have become a more well-rounded human being, Scully, in the last six or seven years..." She shrugs and keeps nibbling. "But anyway, as I was saying... I don't know, I just remember when you were returned to me, after the abduction..."

And then it wells up inside me, just how much that hurt, just how bleak that time was, and I am off and running at the mouth. "... I was overcome, Scully, by how much I needed you, how essential you had become to me. I was, hell, I am so madly in love with you I hardly know where you end and I start..." And then, mercifully, I stop. It occurs to me, seeing her shocked face, that we were discussing attraction, not love, and that I have made an assumption (again!). She has, after all, had an opportunity to tell me she loves me and passed it right by, whoosh, leaving me gasping in the dust.

"I'm sorry," I mutter. "I'm being presumptuous."

She slips over to sit beside me, her body pressing against mine, and she says, with characteristic aplomb: "Shut up, Mulder."

I nod, miserable, and then realize she is leaning over to whisper something in my ear. What could it be, this vast mystery that is Scully's response to my, admittedly, second confession? Will she profess her own love? Will she reject me soundly? Will she tell me she isn't ready for this? What? I'm practically having a coronary.

Her breath smells warm and mediciny, after the alcohol. "When we get home," she murmurs, "I'm going to fuck you until you really can't tell where I start and you stop."

Well, it wasn't exactly what I'd expected, but from the small party going on in my boxers, I'd say it worked for me.

"Oh god," I groan.

"Would you like that?" she asks with her tongue in my ear (in my ear! Jesus!), and the growl returns with a vengeance, like Godzilla, wreaking havoc in my alcohol-addled mind.

"Yes," I tell her with as much sincere desire as a fifteen year-old kid selling bibles door to door. "I sure as hell would."

"Then finish your fajitas, Mulder. You're going to need your stamina."